


He Leads a Lonely Life

by 12BarJaguar



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aromantic, Asexual Awareness Week, Asexuality, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Gen, biromantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-30
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-23 05:24:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2535758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/12BarJaguar/pseuds/12BarJaguar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Can I ask you another question?” Natasha asks mildly, breaking through the companionable silence in the truck.</p>
<p>  Steve laughs slightly, “As long as I reserve the right to remain silent.”</p>
<p>  “Of course,” Nat responds, looking up momentarily from her phone (pickpocketed at their last gas stop) to give him a reassuring smile before asking; “So are you a virgin?”</p>
<p>  It's a long way from D.C. to New Jersey. What else is she supposed to do?</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Leads a Lonely Life

“Can I ask you another question?” Natasha asks mildly, breaking through the companionable silence in the truck.

  Steve laughs slightly, “As long as I reserve the right to remain silent.”

  “Of course,” Nat responds, looking up momentarily from her phone (pickpocketed at their last gas stop) to give him a reassuring smile before asking; “So are you a virgin?”

  The silence recommences, but Nat can tell that Steve is considering the question carefully rather than exercising his Miranda rights. She conscientiously keeps her eyes on the screen, but watches out of the corner of her eye as Steve takes a deep breath and adjusts his hand on the wheel. She had found Steve’s Wikipedia page. There’s a picture in the article of Steve with Agent Carter’s picture in his compass, and another picture of Steve with his arm around one Sergeant Barnes, his childhood friend. As far as she’s concerned, Steve is looking at both of them with the exact same fond expression. Sue her for being curious. Plus, it's a long way from D.C. to New Jersey. What else is she supposed to do?

  “That depends on your definition of the term, I guess,” Steve answers after several minutes of thought, “What constitutes sex nowadays?”

  It is a tentative foray into further discussion, rather than an unsubtle deflection, so Nat, in turn, thinks carefully before answering.

  “I wouldn’t define sex as a specific act,” She says, “I guess the simplest way to put it is, have you orgasmed with the explicit help or presence of another person?”

  “I appreciate the clinical definition, Doctor Romanoff,” Steve says with dry humor and a sideways glance her way, “In which case, no I haven’t.”

  Nat’s phone has absolutely lost her attention. “But you’ve tried?” She guesses.

  “Yep,” Says Steve, his eyes on the road. Score one for Nat.

  “Not what you expected?” She prompts.

  “I don’t know what I expected,” He admits, “I was young – about eighteen - and naïve, though I knew what sex was. I just didn’t think it involved…I didn’t think it would be quite like that.”

  She thinks about her own first time, and other’s stories she’s heard over the years. Nobody ever imagines it accurately and first times almost unanimously suck, but they tend to be successful, as it were.

  “What happened? Did you freak out?”

  “No. Well, yes, later. But we had drunk a bit that night, which is how we got into it in the first place, so I wasn’t exactly scared at the time. I guess I was more bewildered. I…didn’t really do much, just kind of stared. She was very determined but nothing, uh…it wasn’t happening to we stopped.”

  Nat could see the muscles in Steve’s jaw working, and the knuckles on the steering wheel were white. He looks uncomfortable, but he’s speaking frankly and openly without much embarrassment. That was good, she respected him too much to cross that line, but she knew he could deal with a little discomfort.

  There were those pictures though.

  “Do you think maybe the “she” part was the problem?” Natasha puts forth delicately.

  “I did for a bit,” Steve responds, then rolls his eyes, “I know all about homosexuality and whatnot, Nat. I guess it’s not like it nowadays, but back then Brooklyn was pretty much in the gay quarter. Some of my best friends and neighbors were queer as the hair on their wigs was long.”

  Natasha laughs, imagining some of the queens that patronized Lafayette Street nowadays dressed up like flappers. Not much of a stretch, but a nice image.

  “I knew them, ” Steve continues, "And I knew they were good people, despite what others thought. So I wasn’t exactly bothered about that, from a moral standpoint. And I decided to test it and asked this guy out. Actually, I told him what had happened with the girl and he asked _me_ out on a date. No strings, just an honest experiment on whether that’s what I was looking for or not.”

  “Was he handsome?”

  “Well he was no Will Smith, but he was definitely as cute as that guy who plays Sam in the Lord of the Rings,” Steve says with a grin, and only a little irony, “Cute as a bug’s ear, we used to say.”

  “You are a nerd,” Natasha tells him, delighted by all the revelations she’s hearing today, “So what do a couple of gay nerds do on a date in the thirties?”

  “Well usually they;d go to a queer clip joint or a bathhouse, but two things ruled those out. Not only was I just looking to test the waters, but I was also, if you can believe it, a hopeless romantic.”

  “You? No!”

  “Who would have possibly guessed? Anyways, I scrounged up some money and took him to Coney Island. We rode the rides, saw the sights. I held his hand on the Ferris wheel and then he kissed me when we got to the top.”

  “Seems like a successful first date to me. What went wrong?”

  Steve sighs, “I froze up like a rabbit in a spotlight. I didn’t mind it – hell I _liked_ it. I liked him and I liked how he tasted like popcorn and how he felt warm and solid against me. But kissing him made me think about what that leads to and I just…”

  “It just wasn’t happening?” Natasha supplies.

  “Yeah. He said he’d kissed a couplea average Joe’s who’d been having gummy thoughts and I was just another one of ‘em. He said one day I’d find a nice broad and forget all about it. Forget all about him.”

  Apparently he hadn’t forgotten, and was so deep in memory that his accent had noticeably increased. She liked hearing him speak like he must have growing up in the twenties and thirties. She didn't like the brooding frown on his face as he stared at the road ahead.

  “But you did find a girl,” Nat says, softly breaking his train of thought. He glances at her briefly, a sad smile on his face.

  “You know, for the longest time I thought he was right about that. I thought I just hadn’t found the right girl and that when I did those sparks would fly. Until I found her, and it still wasn’t happening.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I was crazy for Peggy, I thought about her every night. I thought about the way she moved, and the sound of her voice, how her lips would press together when she was lookin’ at you all disapproving, but her eyes would gleam with mischief. I thought about that distinct smell that her red lipstick had and how it probably didn’t taste so good but I wanted to taste it anyways. But whenever I thought about that or I thought about holding her, and her touching me back, it turned into her taking off our clothes and then I stopped there. I just couldn’t bring myself to picture past that.”

  “So you loved her,” Natasha says slowly, processing, “You wanted to be with her and kiss her, but you didn’t want to have sex with her?”

  Steve exhales a long breath she didn’t know he had been holding, “Yeah, I guess that about sums it up.”

  “Would it be safe to say you felt that way about other people? About the Coney Island boy?”

  “It would, yeah.”

  Natasha turns her attention back to her phone and the silence stretches out once again. She doesn’t try to break it, but Steve’s words stand stagnant in the air between them. Natasha doesn’t want to leave him hanging like that, but she also wants to be sure.

  It takes a minute of googling and another ten of reading before she looks up again. Steve is worrying his lip between his teeth and brooding some more. A spot of blood wells up and almost immediately closes over when he licks it away.

  “You know the definition of homosexuality?” She asks.

  “Liking someone of your own sex,” He says, like he’s reciting an answer in class, “Heterosexuality is a different sex and bisexual is both, right?”

  “Exactly,” Natasha nods, “So have you ever heard of asexuality?”

  Steve takes his eyes temporarily off the road to examine her as he shakes his head.

  “Basically it’s liking none or neither.”

  “Okay…” Steve says slowly, “I don’t think that applies to me. I love Peggy, and I loved…the guy from Coney Island.”

  “I said ‘liking neither’," She explains, “What I should have said is ‘feeling sexual attraction to neither’. It has nothing to do with love.”

  “Sex has nothing to do with love?”

  “Well, yes and no,” Natasha corrects herself, “The two can be mutually exclusive. You can have either without the other.”

  “Hmmm,” Steve hums thoughtfully, “So asexuals love people but don’t want to have sex with them?”

  “Yup,” Nat pops her ‘p’ and checks her phone again, “There’s even different types of that. So you could be asexual and biromantic which means you want to pursue relationships with somebody of either sex but don’t need sex to be a part of that.”

  Steve actually takes his eyes away from the road for ten whole seconds to stare at her. Then the truck's tires hit the shoulder with a startling growl and he jerks his attention back to driving.

  “Huh,” He grunts seemingly involuntarily.

  “I guess romanticism is even a separate category, because you can be heterosexual biromantic, where you’d like both men and woman but only want to sleep with woman. Or you could even be aromantic, where you like to have sex, but don’t want a romantic relationship. I’d say that one describes me pretty well actually.”

  “Huh,” Steve grunts again, staring determinedly at the road.

  “Sorry,” Natasha apologizes, “Too much to take in?”

  Steve shakes his head and clears his throat.

  “No uh, actually I think you just blew my mind. I am asexual. There’s a word for it. There’s other people who are it.”

  “Aces,” Natasha says.

  “Yeah it is pretty great,” Steve mutters dazedly.

  Nat laughs, “No. Well, yes, but that’s what they call themselves, Aces.”

  “Steven Ace Rogers has a nice ring to it,” Steve says, grinning, “What about, what was it you said you were? Aromantic?”  

  “It's called Aro.”

  “Natasha Aro-manoff, the Black Aro. There you go, a new nickname free of charge.”

  She wants to be annoyed, but his goddamn earnest all-american grin is just too infectious. Besides, it’s an honest respite from the situation they’ve found themselves in. Always a good time to learn something about yourself, she thinks, when your life has been turned upside down, your boss has been shot and you're running from the people you were working with. They’ll probably learn a lot more about each other in the next little while, and not all of it will be as uplifting.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Contributing to asexual awareness week with some Ace!Steve and Aro!Nat. 
> 
> I think Steve's life is about to get just a little less lonely.


End file.
